20 HARDY FLOWERS. 



CHAPTER VI. 



IN THE WILD-GARDEN, IN WATER, AND IN BOGGY GROUND. 



THE rock-garden, the most interesting and beautiful of all 

 known modes of enjoying hardy plants, has been the most 

 misunderstood and neglected, not only in private but in public 

 gardens. Are these plants not to be seen in our botanic 

 gardens ? They are to some slight extent, but, as a rule, 

 they are stowed away in some old frame or pit, the whereabouts 

 of which is only known to those in charge of it, or if not in an old 

 frame, on a miserable stony bank, misnamed a rockwork. It is so in 

 the Botanic Gardens of the United Kingdom. They are slightly 

 protected in winter, and slightly shaded in summer. Is this neces- 

 sary ? About as much so as for an oak sapling. Those who have 

 travelled in alpine countries well know that the dwarf and exquisite 

 vegetation of such the Gentians, and Primulas, and Androsaces, 

 and hundreds of others far surpasses in loveliness any other aspects 

 of the earth's floral beauty. Would it not be possible to have a glint 

 of this in some of our public gardens ? Judging from present 

 appearances, the majority of horticulturists could only answer this in 

 one way that it is impossible. And what else could they say when, 

 if they searched them all, they could not find a healthy plant of 

 Gentiana verna (which grows freely wild in England), or any 

 of the very cream of the alpine flora ? Why, even if they be grown 

 to perfection in pots, the surroundings of such are generally sufficient 

 to destroy all the wild native beauty that these plants exhibit when 

 tastefully arranged on suitable rockwork ; but the fact is they do 

 twice as well when planted out in the open air, and could be grown 

 to perfection in a London square. 



In private gardens nearly everybody has attempted some sort of 

 rockwork or other on a small scale; and it is certain that if the 

 " rockworks" we are now in the habit of seeing satisfy the tastes of 

 their owners, those constructed on a true and sensible principle will 

 afford them the highest delight. Rockwork ! why almost every 

 absurd conglomeration of bricks and burrs and stones that one sees 

 exposing its dry sides to the view, is dignified by the term ! The 

 object of a properly- construe ted rockwork is, or ought to be, to pro- 



